Doors at 6:00

Film screening at 6:30

Booking is Free

A screening of the rarely-seen documentary by master director Sydney Lumet (12 Angry Men, Dog Day Afternoon, Network, Serpico).

Lumet co-directed and co-produced the film with another Hollywood luminary, Joseph L. Mankiewicz. The clips trace King’s life and accomplishments from the 1955 bus boycott to his 1968 assassination.

At 3 hours, the film is utterly immersive, tracking it as does, the full 13 years of Dr. King’s work. First, the fight segregation, then latterly, economic inequality and the war in Vietnam.

It shows a young MLK aged 25, embarking on bus boycott leadership, through to his last years where he’s going deeper as he realises that integrating lunch counters didn’t cost the government anything, but jobs and housing will.

So the question he faced was this: how do we make the government act on these structural issues?

By 1967/68, MLK’s political thinking had considerably moved on from the days of his 1963 ‘I have a dream’ speech – yet this political journey is not so widely known about. His structural analysis of race, economy and war and his solutions, were way ahead of his time. Till today, they remain a correct analysis of our world. The same ‘Triple Evils’ he talked of in 1967/68 are still interconnected, only now they are global: $2trillion global military spend; greater levels global inequality; racism and far-right rising.

This screening will take place in the Union Chapel Bar. The bar will be open during this event.

This event is part of our Lent 2023 programme